


Added Moments

by thechickadee



Category: Saturday Night Live RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-07
Updated: 2014-07-07
Packaged: 2018-02-07 20:08:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1912119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thechickadee/pseuds/thechickadee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Working backwards from 10, little things in their everyday lives that add up to their realizations and whatnot. (The timeline jumps around a bit, sorry.) Reviews are much much much appreciated!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Added Moments

**Ten** was the number of digits in his phone number, ten fateful digits she often stared at for hours on end at varying times of the day or night, deciding whether to call him. Usually, she knew he was probably busy, and really, she was too, but somehow that never stopped her from hitting the ‘dial’ button.

Tina started to make fun of how often she called him, and yes, she may have called him much more than necessary, but more often than not, she just wanted to hear his voice. She called him in the morning while waiting in line for coffee; she called him on weekends to grab lunch, to write, or because there was someone wearing a ridiculous outfit on the subway. Her fingers flew over those ten numbers from memory, like a sixth sense, something she didn’t even need to think about anymore.

When the world turned to smartphones, she still typed out his number on the keypad at least once a week, just to make sure she hadn't forgotten it.

When she was across the country at some obscure award show, she would call him late at night, in her hotel room, drunk and exhausted, to complain about how bitchy and rich everyone was here, and how she wanted come home on the next flight. He would tell her she only hated everyone because deep down in her soul she was an old, stuck-up rich lady, and she would hear the wide grin in his voice. She knew he liked to make her mad. But then he would say he missed her in that low, sleepy voice, and that she had looked beautiful accepting her award, and her heart would feel warm inside out, like she could maybe survive a few more days if he just kept talking.

 

 

 

 

 **Nine** was the number of months he saw her all day every day, the number of months in a televised season, the number of months they basically lived in 30 Rockefeller center each year; it was their gold prison, one that they loved. From September to May, they were joined at the hip.

That first year, when she said she wanted to sneak into the studio at night and stand in the middle of the stage like a real star, way later than they were allowed to be down there, he wanted to say no, but somehow the word “no” turned into “yes” somewhere from his brain to his mouth. He couldn’t ever say no that late at night when she was lying half off of the couch, looking at him upside down with her tongue sticking out.

For those nine months, the building was their kingdom, and she was his princess. When she worked too hard, he would make sure she slept and ate and laughed now and again. He would make it a game, and look for different snacks to bring her every day, and tell her he traveled from the farthest of food carts on various dangerous floors to deliver this delicious pastry, and that it was imperative that she eat it. She would laugh and her eyes would shine with gratitude, and he would be content, settling down to work again by her side.

It was a familiar rhythm known only to them; nobody else could quite understand it. And that made him love it all the more.

 

 

 

 

 **Eight** was the number of Karate Virtues they split down the middle. And yes, it was as obscure as it sounds. One day, Amy was reading an article about the eight virtues of Karate, (who knows where she found it, or why she kept reading after the first sentence), and it was four in the morning and for some reason it wouldn’t leave her mind, so she poked Seth in the shoulder and showed him.

“So to be at peace with yourself or whatever, you have to have all of these virtues?” she had asked him.

His brow furrowed as he read the virtues, then after a minute, he said, “You have half and I have half.”

She leaned over his shoulder and read them again. “Let me guess. You’re Honesty, Peacefulness, Patience, and…Respect. Right?”

He smiled. “Exactly. And that would make you Courage, Integrity, Humility, and Compassion.”

“Seth!” she said, her mind somehow filled with irrational joy. “We really are the perfect team!”

“What if I don’t want to share my virtues with you?” he said, grinning. “Who said you’re worthy of my virtues?”

She shoved him and he landed on the couch. “Go ahead, but just remember that I don’t have Respect or Peacefulness, so I can basically kill you without consequence.”

He pulled her arm and she fell on top of him, laughing. “Se-eth! That wasn’t very Peaceful of you!”

He smiled and his arms wrapped around her waist. “Where do you find this random shit?”

She slapped his hands away and smirked. “If I told you, I wouldn’t have much Integrity, would I?”

 

 

 

 

 **Seven** was the number of days in the week she filled every corner of his mind. He couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, couldn’t breathe without seeing her sunny smile light up the world. He was reminded of her every time he laid eyes on most of the things in his office and his apartment, a secret smile on his face, because there were so many inside jokes that belonged only to them; so many things they laughed at together that nobody else could laugh about. They owned the laughter.

When he was sad, he would watch a Needlers sketch, or read her jokes she had left in his notebooks, and every time he laughed, he could hear her loud, sweet cackle in his ear, right next to him, whether she was with him or not. She was permanently engraved in his mind, a part of him that would never leave him; a part that couldn’t ever disappear, no matter how far away she moved.

 

 

 

 **Six** was the number that started their first real fight. Amy asked Seth how many colors were in the rainbow one night, so she could put it in a sketch, and it was one of those questions she obviously knew the answer to but was too tired to think about. He told her, “Seven. There are seven colors.” And after a minute, she looked up at him and said, “No, there are six.”

It was Thursday night, and the show wasn’t coming together, and both of them had been awake for almost thirty-five hours, so what came next didn’t seem as ridiculous at the time.

Seth ran his hand through his hair, and said, “Why did you freaking ask me if you already knew?”

She dropped her notebook on the floor. “Because I didn’t remember, and I didn’t think you were going to mess with me right now.”

“I’m not messing with you! There are seven fucking colors in the rainbow. Look it up.”

She let out a noise of frustration. “God, you always think you’re right about everything. Asshole.”

“I’m the asshole?” he said, closing his notebook and rubbing his eyes. “This is insane. You’re always so contradictory. You never agree with me on anything. Ever. You ask me things you already know and then tell me I’m fucking stupid if I answer something different than the perfect picture in your head.”

“RED, ORANGE, YELLOW, GREEN, BLUE, PURPLE!” she yelled. “It’s not a goddamn debate!”

“It’s indigo and violet, not purple!” he yelled back, grabbing his hair in both hands. God, he wanted to scream.

“You fucking smartass!” She stared at him and he stared back, both of them incapable of saying anything more, anger and exhaustion boiling in their blood.

Kristen and Bill poked their heads in the door. “Holy shit,” said Kristen, holding back a laugh. Bill chuckled. “Sounds like a good, old-fashioned bloodbath going on here.”

Seth and Amy turned around and glared at them.

Kristen put her hands up in surrender. “Don’t kill me, but you know you guys are arguing about the number of colors in a rainbow, right?”

Seth blinked, his mind cloudy with exhaustion, and realized in a split second the absurdity that had just occured.

And after what seemed like an eternal silence, Amy sank to the floor against the wall and started laughing and half-crying at the same time, tired, weak laughter, until she was lying on the ground.

“Seth, we need some fucking sleep.”

And just like that, it had never even happened.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 **Five** was the number of times they kissed.

The first time was a month after they met, at two A.M. in a supply closet at some party. Amy pulled Seth into the closet and shut the door, and she was on him in two seconds. She was dating Will, and Seth knew that, but they were drunk and young and didn’t give a shit.

The second time was two years later, and they were drunk just like the first time, and she was wearing his jacket, and it smelled like him. They were outside on the sidewalk in front of his apartment, stumbling because it was dark, and his arm was wrapped around her and he wouldn’t let go, making her lose her balance and trip in her ridiculously high heels. The only sound in the snow-quiet night was their drunken laughter and uneven footsteps, and when she took off his brown coat to give it back to him, her pulled her close and kissed her. The alcohol and the cold considerably numbed her reaction time, but when her brain caught up, she grabbed his head in both hands and kissed him back. But as soon as they had taken two steps toward his door, she let go of him and stepped back, her breath making little clouds in front of her. “I can’t. I have to go,” she said breathlessly, and she turned around and left him standing by his door.

And a new pattern had been set. Because now, they were two years older and she was married, and now, they did give a shit.

The third time, it was summer and it was midnight, and they were sober, an interruption to their previously set pattern. Seth thought that Amy had gone home after lunch, but he found her in her dressing room in the middle of the night, sitting on the floor against the wall, crying. He sat down next to her and took her hand, and asked her what was wrong, and she said, “Everything is falling apart.” And he knew she was talking about Will, but he tilted her chin up so she met his gaze, and said, “not everything.”

And her eyes flashed with something like hope and determination and before he could completely figure it out, she put her hand on his cheek and kissed him. The third kiss stood out from the first and the second; it was real, done of her own volition, with nothing to blame it on but the real feelings that were there, that had always been there. Maybe it was because they were sober, or maybe it was because of her tears anchoring him to reality, but he always remembered the way she looked at him in that second. Like there was nowhere else on Earth she’d rather be.

The fourth time was early in the morning; they were buying coffee, and they had run into Seth’s great aunt Janice. Seth whispered to Amy, “she has super bad memory problems, and she’s like, ninety-six, so just go with everything she says, or she gets really confused and panicky.”

Janice’s face turned into a wrinkled smile and she said loudly, “Oh, Seth! Is this that nice girl you’re dating now?”

Amy raised her eyebrows, but grinned and nodded, sliding her arm around his waist.

Aunt Janice frowned at Seth and said, “Well, don’t just stand there, Soofie, kiss her already!”

Seth turned bright red, and Amy’s eyes twinkled.

“Yeah, just kiss me already, _Soofie_ ” she said, her voice teasing. Seth blushed and captured her lips, and he could feel her smiling against his lips, and that made him smile too. And when they broke apart, they were laughing. They were still holding hands when they left the coffee shop, grinning widely.

The fifth kiss was short, but only because it had become too hard to not care, too hard to keep pretending it was normal or morally acceptable. Amy was leaving next week, and her office was almost empty, and they had finally caught up to themselves; the existence of Will and Archie and Abel and Alexi meant something it had never really meant before. Things were changing.

Things had already changed.

They were sitting on the stage one night, their legs dangling off the edge, staring out into the dark studio, his hand rested on top of hers on the cold stage. They were just sitting, not talking, looking at the ghosts of all the memories sitting in the balconies above them and in the seats below, thinking about how far they’d come, and how close they were, and how far they would have to go sooner or later. And suddenly, she just said softly: “I want something I can’t have.”

And he looked at her messy golden braid and her troubled blue eyes and tiny body and beautiful soul, and laughed out loud. When she looked up at him, he said plainly, “I’ve wanted that same thing for longer than you'll ever know.”

And she kissed him, once, sweetly and softly, her hand still trapped under his, just as one last reminder of what it was they wanted but would never have.

 

 

 

**Four** was the number of seasons she saw him each year. Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring; all of them revolving around the both of them. In the summer, they weren’t working late anymore, so she would go over and stay at his apartment for days at a time, fooling around and writing whatever came to their mind, for no specific reason except that they wanted to be together. This was back before there was a ring on her finger, back before Amy needed to come up with daily excuses, before she had to get used to lying.

Summer was Seth lying on the couch wearing only shorts, the humid New York air leaking in under the door, battling the air conditioning, and summer was the laziness that settled over them on hot afternoons, making her capable of nothing but just looking at him with a smile on her face from where she was sprawled out on his carpet.

Autumn was always the beginning of a new year, the work starting, the buzz of excitement all around them. Autumn was Seth bouncing up and down on the first day back at work, running around the building to meet their friends after a summer apart. It was him picking her up and spinning her around after the first show, year after year, pure joy on his face and laughter in her ear, making her feel as if this life would never end.

When winter came, the snow would fall and the cold would creep around them, but his hand kept her fingers warm, and his arms kept her safe from the fear and the doubt that seemed to love the cold nights. Winter was him bursting in through the door, snow flying in behind him, his cheeks red and his eyes bright, handing her coffee before she even asked.

When the snow melted and the birds started chirping again, springtime would sing, and so would he. Always singing, always laughing, his face was constantly mid-smile, dimples permanently plastered on his face.

And at the end of the season, they would say goodbye for the summer with half-hearted sincerity, knowing full well they would see each other almost every day, knowing they couldn’t spend even a season apart.

 

 

 

 **Three** was the number of words he said to her one night, after a show. It wasn’t a significant day, just a normal Saturday night in the middle of November, the cool air crisp and familiar, like every November night they had ever lived through. The cars on the street blurred past them, and he watched her as she looked out the cab window, her eyes filled with wonder and complete satisfaction. Something felt different, and he realized it was the way everything was the same. After four years of knowing her, everything was so stable, expected, and in that moment, he thought for the first time that if he froze time, he would remember this as a perfect moment. They were nowhere special, getting out of the cab in front of a cheap bar, under the dingy streetlights, and she looked happy and eager and full of life, like every other November night, and he couldn’t help himself.

“I love you.”

He said it matter-of-factly, maybe too loudly for a statement like that, but he felt like everything was just like it should be in that moment, and those were the only words that came to his head when he tried to describe it.

And even though they had both known that for a while now, even though neither of them was supposed to say it out loud, she turned to him, startled, and didn’t say a word. She looked at him, holding her breath, and a blush spread over her cheeks. Then, smiling softly, she looked down and took his hand like she had been waiting for him to say those exact words, her fingers fitting perfectly in his. And when she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, he closed his eyes, because this was a perfect moment.

 

 

**Two** was the number of blue eyes she looked into to find her strength. Out of all the people she had ever met, Seth had the most expressive eyes. When he was sad, he would try to hide it, but she could tell in an instant; his eyes would look dull and grey, like a marble that had lost its shine. When he was happy, they danced and sparkled, pouring light into her soul and making her feel as if she could fly. His eyes turned stormy when he was mad, and they looked like cold steel, unusually hard and out of place on his kid-like face. She liked his eyes the most, though, when he just looked at her without talking. Their eyes would meet, but he wouldn’t look away, and his eyes were too hypnotic, too telling, for her to keep her gaze steady. When he chose, his eyes were stripped of all inhibition, bare and revealing to all the emotions that lay trapped inside of him. He used it as a way to talk without speaking. Because he knew she could understand. He knew it was the only way he could tell her all the things he wanted to tell her, all the things she needed to know. And she was so sure she knew what he was saying, but her eyes always fell short of saying it back.

 

 

 

 

 

 **One** was the number of times they fell in love.

 

Amy wanted to think that she fell in love with him over and over again, because it would mean that there were times she loved only Will, but the truth is, the first time she fell for those sparkling blue eyes, she never got up.

Seth likes to think he loved her the first second he saw her, but they both know that's not true; it was a tiny flash in the corner of his vision growing to fill his entire view.

The moment they fell in love was tucked into the corner of her mind, peeking out every time she saw his face, hiding every time she needed to pretend it didn't exist. It was hidden in the crevices of her brain, wedged between shelved sketches and working jokes, and it was the light bulb in the messy attic, the window that gave her clarity when she needed it most.

It's a moment that cannot be recreated, only saved, because the young innocence and inexperience and carefree people in it were, as much as they hated to acknowledge, gone.

 

It was two in the morning, the wind making worrying noises against the windows, and they were writing in Seth's office. Amy was lying on the leather couch, (she slept on it so much she basically owned it), staring up at the ceiling, thinking about life, as she often found herself doing these days.

"Penny for your thoughts," said Seth, glancing at her from his desk.

"My thoughts are worth way more than a penny. At least a dime," she joked absently. He could hear that papery tone to her voice that meant she had gone on autopilot, and he sighed heavily, closing his notebook.

"Poehls, what's wrong?" he said, joining her on the couch, propping her feet up on his lap.

She gave a half laugh of defeat, realizing she had been caught in her pensive state, and looked at Seth like he was an expensive shoe: adoringly, but apprehensively. She looked up at the ceiling again, tracing the square panels with her eyes, wondering what they had seen throughout the years.

"I feel…old," she said after a while, exhaling heavily. "Marriage is supposed to make you feel young again. That's a thing, right?"

Seth just rubbed her ankle patiently, waiting for the rest.

"I feel tired and stressed out and…grown up." She sat up, drawing her knees to her chest, rubbing a hand over her tired eyes.

"Who said growing up was a bad thing?" he said softly, his eyes never leaving hers. His hands fell back his lap, deprived of making soothing circles on her skin.

She just looked at him a little incredulously. She looked at his ruffled hair and twinkling eyes, his natural joy that was so much a part of him it showed on the surface whether he wanted it to or not, and she wondered when she had stopped being that way.

When exactly had she turned into this weary adult?

She just wanted to look that way again, she just wanted to be the same as him instead of on some other indescribable level that put them on separate ground, and when she opened her mouth to tell him that, her voice stuck in her throat.

"I… never meant to grow up, Seth."

Something about how serious she was made him ache. It was something she wasn't saying out loud, and he knew how insecure she could be, and her insecurity was one of the only things in the world that made no sense to him at all, so he was already at somewhat of a loss.

"Thirty-three isn't exactly retirement age, Poehler. I mean, we both know you've got at least another five years left to live."

She laughed, all teeth and wide lips, grateful for his unrelenting quest to make her smile.

"That's right," she said. "Our retirement home will be quite an estate, I'm sure. In five years."

She leaned her head back again, and Seth's smile wore off quickly because that faraway look was back in her eyes, and he just wanted it to be gone.

"Will you do me a favor?" he said, looking at her uncertainly.

She turned her head to look at him, but she couldn't tell what he was thinking. "Depends. Above the waist only, no kissing, and you have to pay my rent." (Whenever she couldn't tell what he was thinking, she reached for a joke.)

He laughed despite himself. "Your rent? Wow. Come on, just come with me, okay?"

She looked at him for a second more, like she was about to say no, but she couldn't do it; saying no to him was never her strong suit.

He took her hand and led her through the hallways, down the elevators, and through the doors into the cold night, past blocks and drunks and park benches covered in snow.

"Where are we going?" she shouted over the wind, her hair whipping in front of her face as he held her hand tightly and ran across the slippery pavement. "Are you kidnapping me? You legally have to tell me, you know."

"Shut up," he laughed, and finally, after rounding a sharp corner, he stopped. She ran into his back almost immediately, and was about to curse him out when she saw where they were.

"Seth, what the hell are we doing here? It's almost one in the morning, and I'm tired, and I'm freezing my ass off."

In front of them was the entrance to the old ice rink where they did goodnights the one year that the Rockefeller rink was under maintenance. She should have recognized the way; she made this trip twice that year at twice the speed, once for dress and once for the live show.

"We're at the ice rink," she said. "The creepy one."

"Really?" he said, rolling his eyes and nodding his head toward the large purple sign above their heads. The sign was falling apart, even more so than it used to be.

"Seth, we don't even have skates."

He grinned. "Billy, the owner, gave me a spare key because I come here so often. Also, he's apparently a fan of mine."

Amy rolled her eyes. "Bigshot."

"Yeah, that's right. So, what do you say? Late night skating with Seth and Amy?"

She looked at him, his hands stuffed in his pockets. He was looking at her with so much hope in his eyes, she felt like he couldn't be possibly looking at her.

"It's late, Seth. I really love this, but I…Will is waiting for me, at home, I have to…"

He just stood there, rocking lightly on his feet, looking at her, waiting for her to finish a sentence he'd heard a million times. And after a minute of cold silence, after a minute of deliberation, he took a step forward.

"Will is always going to be waiting," he said quietly. "And I get it, you have to go home. But just know that he's not always the only one waiting for you."

She took a sharp breath, the air making a cloud in front of her face.

"Okay," she said after a beat, looking up at him. "You win. Let's skate."

 

The rink and the lobby were empty and dark, and it smelled like old leather, and it took them five minutes of groping around in the dark to find the light switches.

("Touch me there 'on accident' one more time, Meyers, and I will hit you with this ice skate." "Hey, you're the one clinging to my arm, you big baby. Where the fuck are the lights?" "Ahh fuck I just ran into a monster spider web!" "Goddammit, that was my toe! Watch where you're stepping with your huge-ass feet.")

And when the rink was finally flooded with golden light, they fell suddenly silent, their sleepy minds filled with quiet wonder at snowflakes swirling in the tiny beams of light.

"Put on your skates faster, slowpoke," yelled Amy, wobbling out onto the ice. "I thought you were the better skater."

"I am," he said, whizzing past her out of nowhere, smiling at the way her short pigtails bobbled with her effort, and she waved her arms wildly, trying to stay upright.

"Jerk!" she yelled, setting after him.

They chased each other for a while, the cold air biting their gloveless fingers and noses and cheeks, the only sound around them the occasional volley of an insult and comeback. Then, they settled into a steady pace together, skating side by side in circles around the rink, their fingers brushing with every push, their breaths mapped out in front of them like quick-fading footprints.

The night was so intensely quiet, the kind of quiet you only hear when there's snow on the ground, that Amy could hear the lights humming and the whoosh of snow falling off the branches of trees. She felt awake, and cold, and new, and she could hear the harmony of their breaths, in and out, and the steady clicks of their skates on the ice. The world was still. She felt like everything in the world was still and silent and unmoving except for them.

And she doesn't remember exactly what came over her, but suddenly something shifted inside her, and she stopped. And Seth, who had been impossibly close behind, bumped into her, sending them both into a flailing heap on the ice. They lay there on their backs, laughing until their stomachs were hurting, making no move whatsoever to get up.

"Why did you stop?" he said, staring up at the crossing of the six string lights above their heads, focusing at the glow coming from the tiny bulbs.

"I don't know," she said.

The only way she could describe it was that her heart felt overwhelmed, like it was seeing every color in existence, or looking every direction at once. It felt full in a way it never had before.

Experimentally, she thought about Will, and all the times he had surprised her or loved her or made her mad, and for some reason, all those feelings didn't add up to the same thing it had before.

Right now, at that moment, lying on the ice of an old rink with her best friend, staring at the snowflakes, she felt complete. She felt happy, and young, and peaceful, and sad, and hopeless and hopeful at the same time. She felt angry at the reality of it, she felt desperate, she felt longing, scared, nervous, awed.

She thought about Seth, and every late night they had spent together in one of their offices, writing and laughing and fooling around and talking about life. She thought of the way he smiled at her, like there was no part of him that was hidden from her, and she thought about the way his eyes looked straight _into_ her. She thought about calling him in the middle of the night to hear him breathe, and every time he got her coffee and drew hearts on the lid, and every stupid cheesy joke he told her. She could see every day like it was happening again in a new light, the way he brushed her hair back, the way his eyes would drop to her mouth and her neck and her shoulders sometimes when it was too late and they were too tired. She could hear him say "Out of all my jokes, I only love the ones that make you laugh," or "I love it when you take no shit from anybody," or "I love your face when you're drunk," and suddenly it felt like the most obvious thing in the world, and she felt like somebody had been holding a bag over her eyes for the last two and a half years.

He was in love with her.

She felt full to the top in every way she could imagine, with every feeling she'd ever felt, most of which she couldn't even name.

And one minute later, Seth rolled on his side, and said, with genuine honesty that rarely showed itself in someone who wrote jokes for a living, "I've never been this happy before. This…you…everything is the way it should be. I can't explain it."

"You feel full to the top?"

He looked at her, like she had just figured him out in one question. Like she could read his mind and he didn't know what to say. The light in his eyes was glowing, but she couldn't tell if it was a reflection or just his soul trying to surface.

"Yeah," he said, with new confidence, like he had finally figured out what this feeling meant. "Yeah, you make me feel… full to the top."

She closed her eyes, her arms stretched to her sides, and felt like she was falling. Moments with Seth, they added up to something she never could have expected. And the irony of it was now that she felt this way about Seth, she _knew_ that this was supposed to be how she felt about Will.

And when she opened her eyes, she was met with a steady blue gaze, filled with fully realized, gut-wrenching, unmistakable, pure love.

 

She should have known that falling once was all it would take, because as soon as she landed, she knew she would never get up.

"You too, Meyers." She closed her cold fingers around his, just for a moment, their backs damp and cold from the ice and the wind.

"You fill me up, too."


End file.
